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Sunday, 23 November 2014

The Procrastinator (Some) Times Sunday 23rd November Edition

EDITORIAL

Morning fellows! Hope your Sunday is going great.

In our News section we have three articles about the Ayotzinapa tragedy in México via Vice, AlJazeera America and Fusion. Oh Mexico, I really feel you, and I'm not the only one as this past week there were protest in several cities across the globe organized mainly via social media by people that want to express their solidarity with the Mexican people and their outrage and disgust to the Mexican government. On the contrary, in Venezuela -and I can't not mention this, I'm sorry- our students were brutally murdered, also by thugs and the police, and jailed in the worst prisons and without due process and nobody but us seemed to care. I guess that human rights violations powered by drug money look a bit worse than the ones powered by oil-money. But believe me, they both hurt the same.

Anyway. We are sharing an AlJazeera America article that summarizes the Ayotzinapa situation in around 3 min, for those of you who have not heard much; the trailer of a Vice soon-to-come documentary, you know these guys are good at their immersive journalism stuff; and a nice op-ed
article in English written by Enrique Acevedo titled: What the
Ayotzinapa tragedy says about Mexico. If any of my friends that live in México want to share
more (I don't necessarily know the best sources), please do.

In our Science & Technology section: Americans seems to be super concerned about privacy, but they act as they don't, and the reason is that often they don’t have real choice, all that and your brain in magic mushrooms. Are you waiting for a stroke of genius that change your life forever? Good, me too. Just keep calm and get older, read
about it in our Design, Business & Innovation section. In Culture & Entertainment, the relationship between art & anthropology, 10 things we can learn about Bill Murray and the most widely used adjective derived from the name of a modern writer... can you guess which one it is? Finally in Our Weekly Procrastination, some photos from Inside, the wonderful exhibition currently at the Palais de Tokyo.

NEWS

Protesters at a government building in Chilpancingo, Guerrero. (Photo by Hans-Maximo Musielik) via VICE.

"On September 26, teaching students from the Ayotzinapa Normal School in
Mexico were intercepted by police forces en route to a protest in
Iguala. In the ensuing clash, six people were killed, and 43
Ayotzinapa students were taken away by the police. Investigations over
the following weeks led to the startling allegations that the police had
acted at the behest of the local mayor, and had turned over the
abducted students to members of the Guerreros Unidos cartel. All 43
students are now feared dead." Check out the trailer, related links and the rest of the article in Vice. E.T.P. 3'

Photo via Huffington Post.

"The Mexican Revolution, which launched on Nov. 20, 1910, was the
first major political and social revolution of the 20th century. It
brought an end to Porfirio Díaz’s 34-year dictatorship and transformed
Mexico through land reform, the implementation of presidential term
limits and the nationalization of natural resources. Today, on the 104th anniversary of the revolution, Mexico faces another defining moment. . .Though drug-war-related violence has not let up during the first two
years of President Enrique Peña Nieto’s term, he has largely ignored it.
What’s more, his administration has changed the narrative to focus on
Mexico as an economic success story . . . But now Peña Nieto, as well as the foreign investors he has worked so
hard to court, can no longer avoid acknowledging the pervasive
violence, corruption and impunity that continue to plague Mexico. The
Sept. 26 abduction of 43 students in the southwestern state of Guerrero
has eliminated whatever credibility his pivoting to economic issues
might have had." Read full article in AlJazeera America. E.T.P. 4'

Photo via Noticieros Televisa.

"Mexico is a nation of stark contrasts. A country where
obesity and acute malnutrition coexist; the home of the world’s richest
man and 53 million people living under the poverty line, almost half of
the population. Nonetheless, there is a historic gap that explains Mexico
better than any other disparity. This is the fracture created by the
absence of the rule of law, one that divides those who infringe norms
with ease and the victims that suffer from rampant impunity.

In some countries, justice in the court system can be
bought, in Mexico it has become a luxury that only a few can afford.
Those that don’t have the money or the influence are left defenseless,
at the mercy of savage criminals and corrupt government officials, who
occasionally act like one and the same, as we’ve seen in Iguala where
six students were killed and 43 others went missing.

Our worst nightmares materialized last Friday when Mexico’s
Attorney General, Jesus Murillo Karam, detailed the gruesome acts
behind the kidnapping and murder of the Ayotzinapa students. We all knew
the chances of finding them alive after more than 40 days were slim at
best. But no one imagined the brutal way in which their lives allegedly
ended – asphyxiation, their bodies burned in a pile, their bones
crushed.

The remains have been tampered with to the point where they
had to be sent to the Innsbruck Medical University in Austria for DNA
identification." Read full article in Fusion. E.T.P. 4'